


Stranger Things Have Happened

by cathouse_mary



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-05
Updated: 2011-09-05
Packaged: 2017-10-23 11:05:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathouse_mary/pseuds/cathouse_mary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The next time someone tells him to take a vacation and relax, James T. Kirk will tell them to get stuffed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stranger Things Have Happened

Written for trekreversebang on LJ

Title: Stranger Things Have Happened.  
Artist: sayfray  
Author: cathouse_mary  
Rating (both art/fic): R-ish for naughtiness.  
Genre/Pairing: Reboot-verse. Gen with preslash. Kirk/Cupcake – no, not the pastry.  
Word Count: 6,102  
Warnings: Cross dressing. Flashing. General naughtiness.

 

Stranger Things Have Happened.

 

“You need to relax, Jim.”

Those were five words that he was never going to listen to from Leonard McCoy ever again in his lifetime. Oh, yes, and his lifetime was going to be really fucking short if he didn’t do things exactly right.

Though if Jim Kirk was being honest with himself – something he found inconvenient – he could have gone off with Spock and Nyota to that music festival on the new Vulcan homeworld. They’d invited him, but he would have been a third wheel to the whole Meet The Parent/Meet The Future Wife thing. Spock was probably hoping he’d start some kind of Jim Kirk Diplomatic Incident and get the heat off him.  
But, no. Instead he'd had to listen to Scotty raving about the pleasure planets of Gliese.

Well, no, he had to be fair to Scotty.

It was the hedonism Scotty had been raving about. There was nookie to your eyeballs in all flavors, colors, conformations and assortments. A man who could not get himself laid long, well and often on Gliese should just give it up and join the vowed religious on a monastic station. Within five minutes of clearing customs, Jim’d had a blow-job in the back of a taxi, and his room’s valet had proven to be an indispensable obstruction to getting dressed for the first two days of his stay. He’d been in an orgy before breakfast on the third day and tied up to a contraption composed of a vaulting horse and a trapeze on the fourth.

It was Jim’s kind of place and for once Jim’s dick could do all the thinking with no repercussions.

A cool breeze caressed his balls as he edged along a small lip of plasticrete molding on the three-hundred-and-third floor of the Golden Fortune pleasure complex atrium. Perhaps Jim’s dick should have read about the Gleisish government’s problems with the Three Suns Andorran crime syndicate, Zeta Orion gang, and the Novy Solntsevskaya Bratva. If Jim’s dick had read the dossiers, Jim would very likely be bored out of his mind at a music festival instead of performing a butt-naked balancing beam act a long way off the ground, thank you very much.

He could blame Scotty for going on about the place and Leonard for threatening him into a leave during the refit, and Spock and Nyota for not dragging him along, but in the end Jim had followed his dick. Granted, the consequences were unusually severe, but there was nobody to blame here but himself.

Jim paused, shadowed and concealed behind a massive floating ad for the Boom Boom Room that had hitched in its progress around the atrium, looking around for a bolt-hole, or a balcony, even an open window would do. He needed communications, and then he needed clothing, and probably some weaponry. The brief encounter with the Three Suns muscle had left him with the impression that there was a rather large stack of latinum and dilithium pending his provable death.

It was sobering to know he’d pissed someone off that much – and a bit of a thrill.

~

It could have gone better and it might have gone worse, Spock was aware of that. Sarek was still grieving, but was a gracious host and a concerned father. He was quite keen to know all about Nyota Uhura. It should not have surprised him that his father was quite knowledgeable about the African Stoics, as the conflicts of Nyota's homeland had been as egregiously violent as anything in Surak’s time. While the philosophical discussions had been deeply rewarding for the three of them, it was with some small relief that Spock answered the call to return to the Enterprise with all haste. The scrutiny of other Vulcans had been a little unnerving for both of them. Understandable, for a race with what was now a very small gene pool, but unnerving.

“Did they give a reason for a recall?” Nyota was doing a check of her room for anything left unpacked, carefully sliding her new Vulcan harp into its padded case.

The recall might be for one of the many simmering conflicts. The Klingons were restive, and the Romulans had been taking rogue shots across the neutral zone. The Orions and Andorrans were posturing over a system composed entirely of lucrative gas giants and asteroid belts that neither actually had any claim to – the resident race having restricted themselves to a single moon and refusing contact with outsiders for the last six thousand years. It seemed to be an issue of some sensitivity, however, and one that had heft to it as well if the Enterprise was being called out.

“Admiral Pike did not.” Spock rolled the last of his clothing and stuffed it into his duffel. “We will be briefed by the admiral once we are at warp. I am given to understand that he will assume command for this particular mission.”

Nyota said nothing and she did it loudly. It was, Sarek assured him, something that seemed to be a singular skill of the most eloquent human females. It at once expressed her belief in him and his ability to command while protesting the presence of someone else taking his place.

“Nyota.”

She pursed her lips. “I’m withholding my opinion until I find out exactly why.”

Logically, Nyota would not need to announce this; she was not without logic as well as good sense. If there was a translation for that, it might be that she was saying that she had greater faith in the cadre of the Enterprise than in Starfleet Command. Among the crew of the Enterprise this was not an uncommon sentiment. “I am certain that Starfleet Command would not send Admiral Pike lightly.”

“What about Kirk?” she asked. “Where's the captain in all of this?”

Spock held her jacket for her, the last thing he could do before they became Commander and Lieutenant once more. “I do not know. Perhaps he is en route as we are.”

Nyota slipped her arms into the sleeves. “And if he's not, perhaps that's why they're sending Admiral Pike. Ready, Commander.”

“Very good, Lieutenant.”

~

FOLLOW ME TO  
THE BOOM BOOM ROOM

The sign was coming back his way. Camping out on that ledge, one hand gripping the edge of a plant installation, Jim had studied the circuit and while what he was about to do was insane and stupid, it was also his only way off this ledge. All of the balconies in the atrium were under emergency seals, and the only way out of here was going to be down on the entertainment floors. If he missed, it was a long way down, and he was not sure that the anti-jumper fields had repowered after the initial explosions had taken out the Golden Fortune's main power grid. The obnoxiously finial-topped, gilded and arabesqued ten-by-eight meter floating ad was self-powered; it ran its own lights, antigrav and music from an onboard program loop, but the route was controlled by a series of beacons on the atrium walls. While he was on it, he'd be out in the open. However, Jim was betting on the device having an autohoming program that would kick in if there was a malfunction or – say – some butt-naked jackass from Iowa were to jump on the damn thing and try riding it around.

The Boom Boom Room. He'd have to remember that. It sounded like fun.

The music changed to a samba drum-corps beat as the thing rose toward him. God, but he was cold – first thing he'd do was find some clothes. His were missing in action.

A few seconds later, with solid ground far beneath his feet, Jim questioned the colloquial use of 'balls' as a metaphor for being courageous. The second he made his leap from ledge to sign, the damned things had tucked up tight. Granted, the pucker factor was high, but maybe it improved his aerodynamics.

He missed. Mostly. But he not-missed by just enough to get a grip and rock himself astride.

The sign had taken some damage and tilted precariously, sending him skidding on his ass toward the edge, hands scrabbling madly for purchase. The stabilizers whirred to life, the sign tilting back and forth as if trying to buck him off. It was odd that what Admiral Pike termed a youth seriously misspent in a variety of dives should prepare him so well for exactly this situation. It was not unlike riding a mechanical bull – something he’d done a lot of in order to win beer money in the Back When.

However, doing it naked and on a two-hundred storey drop was another thing entirely. The autohoming program kicked in and the sign began a rapid descent that all but wrapped Jim’s stomach around his uvula, the music lurching and slurring like a three-day drunk.

“C’mon, baby.” The stabilizers hummed and whined as he clamped his thighs to the fuselage. “Take me where I need to go.”

The damage to the complex became more evident as Jim descended. Energy weapons, from small arms up to plasma grenade launchers, had torn chunks out of the place. Some bodies had been left, but the larger majority of the guests seemed to have been evacuated via the emergency transport protocols after the alarms had been triggered. Had Jim been wearing his guest pass, he’d have gone with them but he’d not been a) in a room or b) wearing his guest pass – or anything, actually. The sign was homing in on the service level of the complex, no doubt thinking itself in need of repair. Maybe he could get a coverall or something here, possibly even some shoes.

The sign pulled into a repair bay and settled into a frame, powering down before going dark and silent. Jim carefully slid to the edge and used a cable to make his way to the floor. The bay was lit by dim emergency lights and the steady blink of alternating red and yellow strobes. Casualties were plentiful here, but any garage or hanger had multiple tools that could double as weaponry. A small flashlight from a tool kit showed the majority of the victims to be a mix of Orion and human, though one Andorran bearing the antennae tattoos of an enforcer had been used as a graphic demonstration of just what kind of damage hydraulic lines could do in knowledgeable hands. A pressurized air line had been inserted under the skin and the poor bastard resembled a naked blue party balloon.

He really needed something to record this - it was evidence. Whatever had blown apart here was enough for one side or another to go to war over. Not that the Orion or Andorran governments hadn’t gone after each other over far less. It was all he could hope that they hadn’t already.

~

The Enterprisers began to trickle aboard, and Christopher Pike was not the man they were expecting to be in the chair. He'd made the transmissions to Leonard McCoy, Spock, Nyota Uhura, Pavel Chekhov, Hikaru Sulu, and Montgomery Scott personally – they were Kirk's cadre and know to be loyal. Those who did not respond to the summons were known to be still on Gleise and right in the middle of a violent cross-syndicate war. If the Black hats were gathering valuable hostages those ransoms could finance further shenanigans for years to come. Depending on the activities one might undertake on Gleise, blackmail was also a potential problem.

“Sir?”

“Yes, Yeoman Rand?”

“You asked to be informed when Commander Spock, Lieutenant Commander McCoy and Lieutenant Nyota Uhura were aboard, sir.” He took the proffered PADD and scanned it quickly. Ship's status was ready to warp, with some indignant notes from engineering. The crew was heading back in steady numbers from their truncated leaves, making ready for undock with remarkable efficiency. He took the stylus, acknowledging the notes and signed as acting captain instead of admiral.

Glancing at the roster, he noted they'd come in on the same shuttle not five minutes ago. Yeoman Rand was extremely efficient. “So I did. Have Lieutenant Sulu and Ensign Chekhov reported in?”

“En route from San Francisco and Novy St. Petersburg, respectively. Respective ETA, five and six hours.”

“Lieutenant Commander Scott?”

“Complaining bitterly about being rushed on the refit, sir.” She took the PADD back from him.

“I will need to see them all as soon as they're aboard. Dismissed.” Uncharacteristically, the yeoman hesitated. “Question, Yeoman Rand?”

“What about the captain, sir?”

The question was careful, and while he had no doubts about the yeoman's discretion, the situation was sensitive enough that he could not answer without alerting every bent ear on the bridge. In addition to a Starfleet captain, there was also a Starfleet security chief, two or three warp theory engineers, and one classified technology specialist. Resident on Gleise itself was the staff and ambassadors from almost one hundred embassies. Visiting for a variety of reasons were shareholders and the board of Transgalactic Holdings, plus major players in the commodities markets, shipping consortiums, biotechnical engineering, and at least one crowned head.

What a mess.

“Dismissed, Yeoman.” He just hoped that Jim Kirk could land on his feet again.

~

Hikaru turned his station over to his relief when Pike called them all together before the general address to the crew. The entire Gleise system was out of communication, but there had been enough people evacuated to have some idea of what had happened. “The three syndicates involved are known for excessive non-combatant casualty rates and extreme violence. The chairman admits that they’ve allowed the Zeta Orion group in as labor contractors, but professed ignorance about the Three Suns and Novy Solntsevskaya Bratva.”

Hikaru digested that. “And that’s where the captain is now?”

Pike nodded. “We have him confirmed on a transport to Gleise’s hub from a civilian dock on Phobos, with a check in at an entertainment complex called ‘Golden Fortune’ one day later.”

“Most resorts have emergency transporter protocols in case of attack or emergency; wouldn’t he have been beamed out?”

“If he were in his room or in the complex and wearing his guest badge, yes. He apparently wasn’t. There’s also a huge stink because the guests were evacuated before diplomatic staff, and it appears that some badges of high-value types were tampered with, leaving them vulnerable to other breaches in security. We’re being deployed in all possible capacities to address a highly complex and explosive situation.”

The tactical situation was grim and the intelligence was nonexistent. They could be walking into anything up to cruiser level warfare; though Hikaru doubted that crime syndicate could afford or staff anything close to a Constitution class ship.

~

It made Nyota’s hands itch to get to her station, her mind already calling up the communications setup specs for the Gleise system. It had been news, actually, the state of the art system that could allow real-time communications from Gleise to the edge of settled space. And on Gleise, it also allowed for rather exacting surveillance. If she could just insert a script into the keystone satellite, she could-

“Admiral Pike? I think I might be able to tap into some direct intelligence.” At his nod, she laid out what she knew of the system’s communications. “All the pleasure complexes are partially owned by the Gleise shareholder corporation, and they like to keep a tight eye on their investment, so while what happens on Gleise stays on Gleise, it’s a better than average chance that someone on Gleise was watching it.”

One thing about the Admiral, he did not stand too much on bureaucratic procedure. There were classified specifications that were given on a Need-To-Know basis, and they needed to know – so he conveyed them after sending Ensign Chekhov to deliver a very generalized mission statement to the crew. There was a comm panel on the auxiliary bridge that area could be very effectively sealed off from the rest of the ship.

~

The auxiliary bridge was meant to be a retreat of last resort. Fully staffed from yellow alert upward, the minimal crew was meant to pilot the Enterprise safely away from whatever hazard had eliminated control from the bridge. It was also so small that everyone was asses and elbows in everyone else’s way. In the end, Pike booted all but the essential personnel into the corridor – keeping Nyota, Spock, Sulu, and himself.

“I am essential, dammit.” Leonard planted his feet. “How else are you going to search all that tape without Kirk’s scans? Not to mention the scans of people who didn’t respond to the return to station order?”

“It is logical that we identify all those we can, sir.” Uhura was grateful for the backup, though Pike seemed to hesitate. “The Enterprise has transported or treated many of those on the list of unaccounted for guests and diplomatic staff – and possibly some of the instigators, as well.”

“Very well, Commander Spock. Dr. McCoy, Lieutenant Uhura, please proceed.”

Of course, what she was about to do was in a grey area of legality. The programs and techniques she was about to employ were absolutely legal and above-board. What she was about to do with them was questionable, but in this case the ends were going to have to justify the ends. They had to know what they were walking into.

~

Leonard actually ended up ferrying coffee and doughnuts while Nyota did whatever it was that she was doing. It involved a great deal of intense concentration and, when asked, Spock averred that not even explosions could break her concentration. There was also, occasionally, some absolutely blistering invective on her way to nailing this thing down.

Finally, the system map came up, blinked once and presented an overlay of circling words around what looked to be some sort of Hallowe’en mask.

EXPECT US.

Nyota smiled. “I’m in. Doctor, I need you to access the profiles please.”

A few strokes of the PADD and the display blurred as the program analyzed thousands of faces per second. One after the other began to pop up as data was matched and verified. Raw data on events taking place poured in. The complexes had all been hit at once – central power cut, but not the emergency systems.

KIRK, JAMES TIBERIUS. CAPTAIN, USS ENTERPRISE

“We have a match for the captain, sir!”

GOLDEN FORTUNE RESORT COMPLEX: 0412GMT

Nyota tapped the interface and the image came up large and began to play.

Total silence reigned for five minutes – or four minutes and thirty seconds after the short clip had played and then reloaded to await instructions.

Leonard rubbed his hand over his face, starting at his temples and finishing with his chin and when he was done the situation had not at all improved. Spock, in fact, was still blinking as his Vulcan mind tried to process the image that had just assaulted their eyeballs. Pike looked at the holographic image and shook his head in disbelief, both at the image and the action. James Kirk was bucky-tailed naked and riding a floating billboard down the atrium of the expensive resort. It put Leonard in mind of a character from a twentieth-century movie, riding a nuclear bomb down to target.

“Oh, Kirk, you utter fucking pea-brained idiot…” Pike rasped and Leonard found that he could not agree more.

~

Robert Kupke was on leave. Well earned, hard earned leave, and then something like this happens.

God. Damn. It.

He’d been changing after his swim, his guest pass sitting right there on his clothing when wham-bam the lights went out, a klaxon sounded emergency evacuation and Robert lunged for his clothes just as they dematerialized, leaving him naked, wet, and alone in the dark.  
Some leave. Rest, relaxation, and armed insurrection – yeah, Gleise had it all. Next time he’d pick a beauty spot like Rura Penthe or the Riverside Shipyard. Creeping silently through the complex, he thought that most everyone must have been transported out, or be in lockdown behind their room’s security systems – except for him. Then again, the universe had a way of doing some very unfunny stuff to him. God, back on the Enterprise with that Iowa yahoo all but beaming up into his arms-

Clothes. He needed clothes. Not to revisit the ghosts of assholes past. There was a cosplay vending machine somewhere near the Boom Boom Room if he remembered correctly, and with any luck there was something in it that would not utterly destroy his dignity. With any luck, he wasn’t going to get his naked ass shot in just getting there.

For a big man, he could move quietly and did, through the casinos and down through the showrooms, dance halls, bath houses and assorted fleshpots he’d actually been hoping to sample. There was nothing moving that was any larger than a robovac in the hours it took him to find the remembered establishment and the machine – and there his luck ran out. The machine was running on battery power, but there were only two costumes left.

Just who the fuck was ‘Conan the Barbarian’ anyway?

Naked beggars could not be choosers. It covered his ass and other parts that liked to be warm and cozy instead of swinging in the breeze, but the sword was really overkill. It looked as if he was-

He paused, listening, and then slid into the shadows as the soft pad-and-pause of someone cautiously moving in his direction came again. There might be someone eliminating witnesses.

Closer. Damn but he needed a weapon, not some crap plastic sword, and maybe the loincloth didn’t cover quite as much as he wished it to. He hefted the sword, waiting. It could just as easily be some civvy caught out as he had been, but assumptions in this case might make a corpse of him.

~  
Just… no.

Jim stood in front of the cosplay vending machine and stared at the one costume left.

Make that an oh HELL no.

Jim didn’t have a lot of sticking points for himself, but this was going to be one of them.

SEXY CUTE CANDY-STRIPER! COMPLETE COSPLAY OUTFIT! INUTIT-FIT FABRIC! ONE SIZE!

There was a little hat with a cross on it. Some kind of religious thing, maybe? He had to put something on and there was no other option. Everything was either in areas under lockdown or being worn by a corpse. He hadn’t been able to find so much as a shop rag, table cloth or bath towel.

Fine. All right. He was secure enough in his masculinity to do this.

Setting down his wrench, he dropped the tokens into the slot and bent to retrieve his purchase.

Something sharp and pointy poked his left cheek. Not the one on his face, either. Aw, hell.

“Easy. Take it easy. I’m stuck here just like you.” Jim straightened up, raising his hands and lacing his fingers behind his head. “I’m not armed, as you can see, and I’m going to turn around now. All right?”

“No funny stuff, because I am armed and will run you through.”

Jim could feel an entirely inappropriate and gleeful smile blooming on his face. There was a voice from his past! While Jim was happy to hear it, the voice’s owner was not going to be all that pleased to see him. He turned and beheld-

“Cupcake!”

~

“Aw, fuck. No. Not you. Anyone but you, Kirk.”

Robert made a mental note never to ask how Situation A could possibly get any worse, because goddamned if he didn’t get an answer every single time. What or whose cosmic bowl of breakfast cereal had he whizzed in to get James Kirk as his own personal pain in the ass?

The fucker grinned as if paid a compliment. “Nice sword. Compensating?”

Robert had come up through the enlisted ranks when this punk was still in juvie. In answer, he moved his loincloth aside.

Kirk, possibly for the first time in his life, looked impressed with something other than himself. “That’d be a no, then.”

At least Kirk was a fellow officer, and therefore something of a known quantity. They could work together – not that it was a pleasant prospect. “See anything on your way here?”

“Casualties. Someone hung up a Three Suns enforcer and played games with some hydraulic lines in the machine shop.” Kirk opened the bag with a rather stoic expression and started figuring it out. “Some humans look like druzhina from their shaved heads. The tattoos on the back of the hands might be Katorgan.”

“So much for the governor being on top of the situation.” Oh, for a camera. Captain Jesus T. Kirk all dolled up in stretchy satin and white fuck-me boots. Which was not all that bad.

“He is on top of it – just like he’s on top of his wallet.” Kirk was obviously debating the stockings and considering the boots. “There was talk of the Zetas going legit.”

“Not legit, just into legit industries, since the Federation cut into the profits from slavery, drugs, and contract killings.” The Zetas legit? His ass. Crime syndicates were upwardly mobile. They might change their colors, but not their spots. “Ten to one the governor was in their pocket, though, not them in his. Where were you heading?”

Kirk’s answer was actually intelligent. “I was heading into the sublevels – housekeeping, systems engineering, and communications. I thought I might even be able to unlock the transporter grid and beam out of here.”

“I tried a few of the weapons I could find. They were tied to the user’s life signs. No use unless you’re going to throw them.” He couldn’t keep back a smirk when he looked at Kirk. All dolled up, he was pretty cute – for a yahoo.

~

It was probably not a good idea to get into a fight right now. In fact, it was likely a really stupid idea.

“So where’d you end up after the Narada?”

“40 Eridani A Yards. They needed a new chief, even if Command didn’t want to give them one.” Cupcake looked him over. “I think you have that part on backwards.”

“I don’t have it on backwards, I just don’t have tits.” Cupcake looked him over and smirked again. Jim knew when he was having his chain jerked. “Listen up, Cupcake. We’re both officers, both on different tracks and both equally competent, but you need to get it through your head and right now that I’m calling the shots here.”

“That so, Yahoo?”

Yahoo? Come back to that later.

“And I’m going to tell you why. Because even dressed in a cheap stripper’s costume I have a big clanging pair of ‘em, Cupcake.” The thong was up his crack and there was no way to adjust it. The big clanging pair was a little pinched. “Don’t make me pull rank.”

“Sounds like you already are.” It was probably only reflex that made Cupcake lower that sword into eviscerate position.

“Look,” Jim had to get Cupcake on board with this, and knew damned well he was working from a big disadvantage considering their previous history. “The Enterprise is the only ship capable of getting here in any kind of timeframe. The bad guys probably already have their hands on guest lists and could very well be looking to neutralize anyone from Starfleet. Of all the times I’d like not to be bitten in the ass for being a jerk in the past, this is one of them. Hell, I don’t even know your name.”

For a moment Cupcake looked as if he were about to spit nails. “Robert Kupke.”

“Aw, no. Really?” Good going, Jim! “Pleased to meet you, I’m James Kirk – complete asshole.”

~

Nyota took split shifts, monitoring Gleise’s communications all the way. The traffic shifted between Andorran and Pan-Slavonic as the two fought it out for control. The Orion Zetas had apparently gone right for hostages, and failing that were trying to fend off attacks by the other two syndicates. All three were after the governor, as yet unaccounted for and possibly fugitive. The emergency transporter system had locked everyone out and was holding the molecular profiles of almost a quarter million guests and population in holographic memory banks.

Pavel and Scotty were already all over that. There might not be a way to bring that many live people on board, but data storage? Yes, they could do that with room to spare. It was the prospect of a house-to-house fight with the syndicates that had her worried. If anything damaged that data, all those people would simply cease to exist.

Hm. What was that? The small discontinuity in the data stream triggered a camera, and for a moment she couldn’t see a thing. The location was given as maincom in the Golden Fortune, but there was something across the visual field.

~

The only reason they were able to get into the main communications room was that someone was already in there, frantically trying to beam himself out but lacking the elementary brainpower to manage anything beyond petty treachery, graft, and extortion. Pretty much what you might expect from the standard politician – in this case being the governor. Of course, being in frantic fear of becoming messily dead at the hands of various screwed-over and trapped criminal elements didn’t make anyone any smarter - though it could concentrate the mind on simply getting out alive.

And that was something that Jim Kirk in candy-striper drag could derail without ever resorting to use of pipe wrench or Conan. The governor, lacking any place to be restrained ended up in a broom closet, while Jim sat down and tried to figure out the console. He might be able to bypass local control of the transporter array and-

“Captain? Um. Is that you?”

Only being exhausted kept Jim from jumping out of his skin. “Lieutenant Uhura. I’m going to assume that you have audio and visuals.”

A very long pause. That would be a yes, then. Shit.

“Yes, sir. Admiral Pike would like to speak with you. About the situation.”

Secure in your masculinity. Pretend it’s your uniform.

“Of course, Lieutenant. Admiral Pike, James Kirk and Robert Kupke reporting.”

“… at ease. Kirk, what are we walking into here?”

“So far as Lieutenant Commander Kupke and I have been able to determine, a rat caught in his own trap, a three-way clusterfuck between syndicates, and a possible plan to remove a system from Federation control, and a plan to extort ransoms from governments, corporations and individuals.” Kirk could not help but be a bit smug. “The problem is in all this grand planning is that Gleise shareholders take their till-watching seriously and he ended up locking himself out of his own escape plan. He’s in the broom closet.”

~

Nyota stared. Scotty and Chekhov had no expression at all. James Kirk might as well be sitting in the command chair, utterly nonchalant despite being dressed in a hootchie-coo girl’s stage costume. Pike fought to keep his eyes of that perky little hat and speak strictly about the situation, but the questions were bubbling so hard that Nyota could practically hear them.

Then there was the side of beef in the leather loincloth standing behind Kirk. She elbowed Pavel hard when he went a little glassy-eyed; for a kid he had a major thing for burly.

Still, it would make a great training module. Keeping your mind on the job when the going gets really, really weird.

“So while everyone is safe and snug in the data banks, I need you to find everyone that’s not. Do a full scan for life forms, then lock on through the local transporter system and beam everyone into storage.” Kirk looked pleased. “How many of the stored guests can Gleise Station handle at once?”

“Sir, we’d have to beam you and the Lieutenant Commander up as well.” Nyota said. “It could take weeks to sort out individuals and get them where they need to go.”

“Not if you run them against extant transporter profiles. It would be like comparing fingerprints.” Kirk maintained. “They’re accepted as proof of identity in every Federation court of law. Of course, in the interests of security and taking custody of the governor, you could always beam us up first?”

Pike took a very long and very deep breath. “Of course. And we’ll have some uniforms waiting in transporter room three. Mr. Scott, Mr. Chekhov, with me.”

~

Once the Enterprise was back in repair dock at McKinley Station, Admiral Pike debarked with unusual haste for his new duty station. The expression on his face at the official change of command could only be called relief. The sorting out of the Gleise system was going to take a long time, but the admiral was possibly the best man there was for the job. Then again, after this little adventure, Gleise probably looked like a haven of sanity and reason.

It was going to take a long time for Jim to live this down, too, and that was best done out of sight of anyone with flag rank. His crew had their moments, but none of them had ever been in lingerie and platform thigh-high boots.

Jim signed off on the repairs and refitting left to do, and tried to figure out how he was going to spend the next three weeks. Most of the crew was resuming their leaves. Hell, most everyone had somewhere to go. Maybe he’d check into the Bachelor Officer’s Quarters instead of staying aboard.

He’d stay and ship-sit. After all, how much trouble could he possibly get into on station? McKinley was out in the ass-end of nowhere, but it wasn’t Iowa. There had to be something to do.

~

Three weeks on McKinley station awaiting transfer. The fleet was rebuilding and transfers flew thick and fast. Robert had to admit that Enterprise was a plum assignment for someone motivated, though how Yahoo would take it, he had no idea. The old man back at Eridani had blued up the air a bit, questioned Pike’s parentage and accused Command of sundry colorful doings, but in the end let Robert’s transfer go through.

The BOQ was almost empty, the common areas were ghost towns, and even the main drag of the station couldn’t muster a decent crowd. He might not be getting shot at, but there was a damned good chance that three weeks of boredom would kill him. After buying a few sundries for his duffel, Robert headed back to the turbo lift.

Someone was already there, poking the call button as if to make the lift to appear faster. Blond. Slender. Off-duty blacks worn with a beat up motorbike jacket. With an ass he would know anywhere.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Kirk, not you again?”

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Cupcake, people will talk.” Kirk turned. “Lieutenant Commander – nope, sorry – heard about the promotion. Congrats, Commander Kupke.”

“Yeah, thanks.” The lift doors puffed open. “You staying on station?”

“Have to finish that refit and get seals this time. The Admiralty isn’t going to let us out twice.”

The lift was empty but for the two of them as the doors closed. Robert eyed Kirk. Kirk eyed him.

“So, Yahoo. Did you bring your… thing?” His ass had looked fine in that thong, especially with the white vinyl fuck-me boots.

Kirk gave him a sideways eye again. “Yeah. You, Cupcake?”

“Yeah.” The next few decks passed in silence.

“You know, there’s a franchise of The Boom Boom Room on ring five.”

Trust him to know that. Kirk had a section of his brain that was a little black book. “That so?”

“They’ll honor the membership chips from Gleise.”

Boredom was not going to be a factor in his stay after all. He did not think that boredom could survive Jim Kirk. “Meet you there in twenty minutes?” He’d wanted to try that new holographic entertainment suite.

“You bet your fine ass, Cupcake.”

You know, maybe he wouldn’t tell Yahoo a thing about his transfer just for the fun of seeing his face when he reported for duty.

~

End


End file.
